Leon Alton Movies
- 1962
Dana Andrews is ad-man Clint Lorimer in this uneven drama, the last feature film by director Bruce Humberstone, released several years after it was completed. Clint is fired from his job working for a big ad agency, and he is determined to prove himself better than his former bosses. He has two romantic liaisons, one with Peggy Shannon (Jeanne Crain) and another with Anne Temaine (Eleanor Parker). Anne works as the advertising agent for a milk company run by a weirdo exec (Eddie Albert) who plays with toy airplanes in his office, but as time passes he becomes Machiavellian and ego-maniacal. Anne herself changes from a frump to a tough and glossy businesswoman, perhaps making Clint's choice of a future bride easier. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dana Andrews, Howard St. John, (more)
The John O'Hara/Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart Broadway musical Pal Joey created quite a stir during its original theatrical run in 1940. Here we had a heel of a hero who sleeps with a wealthy older woman in order to realize his dream of owning his own nightclub, and who breaks the heart of the girl who truly loves him when she impedes his plans to get ahead. Blossom Time it wasn't. Due to the seamy nature of the plot and the double- and single-entendre song lyrics (especially the original words for "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", which you aren't likely to hear on most mainstream recordings of this tune), Pal Joey could not be faithfully filmed back in the 1940s. Even this 1957 version, made at a time when movie censorship was beginning to relax, was extensively sanitized for public consumption. Ambitious singer/dancer Joey (Frank Sinatra) is still something of a louse, but a redeemable one. The relationship between Joey and his older benefactress Vera Simpson (Rita Hayworth, who was actually a few years younger than Sinatra) is one of implication rather than overt statement. And Joey's true love, chorine Linda English (Kim Novak), is as pure as the driven snow, who vehemently expresses distaste at having to perform a striptease. The Rodgers and Hart songs ("I Could Write a Book" the aforementioned "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered") which seemed so cynical and ironic back in 1940, are given the typically lush, luxurious Hollywood treatment (many of the tunes, notably "There's a Small Hotel", were borrowed from other Rodgers and Hart shows, a not uncommon practice of the time). Pal Joey is nice to look at and consummately performed, but don't expect the bite of the original play, or the John O'Hara short stories which preceded them. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, (more)
- 1956
- Add The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit to QueueAdd The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit to top of Queue
This meticulous and unusually long cinemadaptation of Sloan Wilson's best-selling novel The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit stars Gregory Peck as an ex-army officer, pursuing a living as a TV writer in the postwar years. Hired by a major broadcasting network, Peck is assigned to write speeches for the network's president (Fredric March). Peck comes to realize that the president's success has come at the expense of personal happiness, and this leads Peck to ruminate on his own life. Extended flashbacks reveal that Peck had experienced a torrid wartime romance with Italian girl Marisa Pavan, a union that produced a child. Peck is torn between his responsibility to his illegitimate son and his current obligations towards his wife (Jennifer Jones), his children, and his employer. Among the many life-altering decisions made by Peck before the fade-out is his determination to seek out a job that will allow him to spend more time with his family, even if it means a severe cut in salary. The superb hand-picked supporting cast of The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit includes Ann Harding as March's wife, Keenan Wynn as the man who informs Peck that he'd fathered an Italian child, Henry Daniell as a detached executive, and an unbilled DeForrest Kelley as an army medic (who gets to say "He's dead, captain"!) ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Gregory Peck, Jennifer Jones, (more)
